| Old Hampshire Mapped |
| Cobbett's HampshireTranscription (26) |
|
1822, September |
previous RURAL RIDE OF A HUNDRED AND FOUR MILES, FROM KENSINGTON TO UPHUSBAND; ... [September 1822] |
|
Crondall geology loam flint chalk Slade Heath heath |
[from Bourne outside Farnham] ... on towards Crondall upon a soil
that soon became stiff loam and flint at top with a bed of chalk
beneath. We did not go to Crondall; but kept along over Slade
Heath, and through a very pretty place called Well. ... ... |
|
Upton Grey Preston Candover Chilton Candover Brown Candover Candovers Ovington Winchester flint chalk geology loam corn sheep woods oak hazel hurdle fence yew yew avenue |
... we chose to wind down through Upton-Gray, Preston-Candover,
Chilton-Candover, Brown-Candover, then down to Ovington, and into
Winchester by the north entrance. From Wrecklesham to Winchester
we have come over roads and lanes of flint and chalk. The
weather being dry again, the ground under you, as solid as iron,
makes a great rattling with the horses' feet. The country where
the soil is stiff loam upon chalk, is never bad for corn. Not
rich, but never poor. There is at no time any thing deserving
to be called dirt in the roads. The buildings last a long time,
from the absence of fogs and also the absence of humidity in the
ground. The absence of dirt makes the people habitually cleanly;
and all along through this country the people appear in general
to be very neat. It is a country for sheep, which are always
sound and good upon this iron soil. The trees grow well, where
there are trees. The woods and coppices are not numerous; but
they are good, particularly the ash which always grows well upon
the chalk. The oaks, though they do not grow in the spiral form,
as upon the clays, are by no means stunted; and some of them very
fine trees; I take it, that they require a much greater number
of years to bring them to perfection than in the Wealds. The
wood, perhaps, may be harder; but I have heard, that the oak,
which grows upon these hard bottoms, is very frequently what the
carpenters call shaky. The underwoods here consist, almost
entirely, of hazle, which is very fine, and much tougher and more
durable than that which grows on soils with a moist bottom. This
hazle is a thing of great utility here. It furnishes rods
wherewith to make fences; but its principal use is, to make
wattles for the folding of sheep in the fields. These things are
made much more neatly here than in the south of Hampshire and in
Sussex, or in any other part that I have seen. Chalk is the
favourite soil of the yew-tree; and at Preston-Candover there is
an avenue of yew-trees, probably a mile long, each tree
containing, as nearly as I can guess, from twelve to twenty feet
of timber, which, as the reader knows, implies a tree of
considerable size. They have probably been a century or two in
growing; but, in any way that timber can be used, the timber of
the yew will last, perhaps, ten times as long as the timber of
any other tree that we grow in England. next |
 
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